The present application relates to a novel and useful flue gas combustion apparatus.
Flue gasses generally emanate to the atmosphere via a flue or stack from fireplace, oven, furnace, boiler, steam generator, or the like. Flue gas is also often referred to as the combustion exhaust gases produced at a power plant. Flue gas exiting burning units consists mostly of nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and water vapor. However, a notable percentage of unburned hydrocarbons also exit flues.
In the past, flue gas combustion recovery devices have been proposed to recycle particulate matter and to insure energy capture therefrom.
For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,030,877, 4,449,511, and 4,558,689 describe waste gas heat recovery devices in which one or more heat exchangers are placed in the path of exhaust flue gases from a furnace to extract heat therefrom.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,981,111 shows a combustion unit in which exhaust fly ash is recovered according to particle size and where certain particles are used to control the temperature of the combustion zone of the reactor.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,392,610 shows a heat scavenger system in which the incoming air to a furnace is preheated by a heat exchanger which is connected to the exhaust flue of the furnace.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,660,148 shows a method for cooling the circulating material in a fluidized bed boiler which uses a heat exchanger to remove heat from the flue gas and recycle the cooled flue gases to the combustion chamber.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,302,683 shows a heat treatment apparatus in which incoming air to a burner cone is preheated by the use of an extraction cone. The incoming air and the exhaust air from the extraction cone pass against each other through a spiral heat exchanger.
A flue gas combustion apparatus which recovers heat and energy from a burning unit would be a notable advance in the energy production arts.